Buying Guide:
Home Theater Furniture - Your Design Concept's Focal Point
Many fail to recognize the impact of home theater furniture on the design concept for your home theater. Arguably so, most are focused on the system-related elements that ultimately drive the home theater experience. While important, the items are dependent upon (in large part) the space you're working with and the seating arrangements of those in the room. Don't overlook this aspect of your room design -- this should be one of the first things you spec out in the planning process.
We'll break down home theater furniture into three separate categories: audio-video entertainment centers, seating, and storage. Comparatively speaking, storage is probably the least important in terms of home theater design. However, the other two can have a significant impact on other purchases you make as you build your home theater system.
Audio-Video Entertainment Centers
If you're going down the path of purchasing an audio-video entertainment center to become the hub of your home theater environment, it's important to identify your current requirements in terms of function, appeal, and budget, without losing sight of what you may end up doing a few years down the road. These home theatre furniture items can be quite expensive, depending on what you end up choosing.One driving factor will certainly be what size of television the unit can support. Fully enclosed units have a size constraint associated with them whereas platform units (TV sits on the top, components on the bottom) offer a little more latitude.
Ultimately, you'll probably want a unit that will support four (or more) components. You'll fill these up quickly if you have a receiver, cable/satellite box, DVD player, and a gaming system. It's also nice when the unit comes equipped with a power outlet strip, which gives you some flexibility for powering things located around your home theater.
Seating
We will be covering many items surrounding seating in our design e-guide. We'll touch on a few points here to consider in your purchase decision.When we typically buy furniture, we typically are looking at style/appeal, function, and comfort. For home theater seating, we're essentially shopping for the same things, but with a slightly different twist.
How important is comfort in terms of home theater furniture? Well, contrary to what would otherwise be conventional thinking, a cardinal rule in home theatre seating is to not buy something that is too comfortable. If you buy seating that is too comfortable, you'll certainly have a much easier time falling asleep during that late night movie you'll be watching in pitch dark lighting.
However, you need to balance comfort versus the need for your seating to be a good absorber of sound. We recommend finding something that is middle-of-the-road in terms of comfort but also has a fair level of cushioning and padding to limit the reflection of sound.
In terms of function, many of us really enjoy the comfort and relaxation associated with reclining chairs. These are commonly used seating alternatives in home theatre rooms. While these are not necessarily bad purchase decisions, you should be mindful that reclining chairs can change the position of your head when seated, which can have some effects on the sound coming from your surround sound system. Likewise, you should consider the additional space requirements (leg room, aisle space) necessitated by reclining chairs.
High backs on chairs can degrade the effect of surround sound relative to your seating position and should be avoided, as well. Small changes in the positioning of seating in your theater room can also impact sound, as well.
Obviously, you should consider how many people your home theatre will reasonable entertain.
Storage
Storage is directly influenced by the space you're working with, in addition to the things that you'll be storing. For some that may mean only a DVD library. For others, it may mean a CD/DVD library as well as several components of your home theatre system.Be sure to take note of what you will need in the future. For example, if you have recently became a DVD collector, try to guestimate how many DVD's you'll eventually own. Media cabinets are a widely used and available pieces of home theater furniture for storing movies, music, and video games. They come in a variety of shapes, size, and colors to suit virtually anyone's tastes.
Home Theater Furniture → Buying Guide main page
